Business is Booming at “Ruff Times”

Nov. 29, 2010 4:54 PM ET

Following Howard Ruff for the last 33 years has always been eye opening, if not entertaining. The irascible Mormon is the publisher of Ruff Times (www.rufftimes.com / ), one of the oldest investment letters in the business, and one of the original worshipers of hard assets.

The great thing about the end of the world crowd is that all of their trades are going gangbusters now and we’re all still here. Talk about a win-win! He says that any investment denominated in dollars is a mistake, which is in a long term down trend, along with all paper assets. Silver (NYSEARCA:SLV) is his first choice, which will outperform gold, and eventually top $100 from the current $27. His personal target for the barbarous relic (NYSEARCA:GLD) is $2,300, but that might prove conservative.

With the Chinese building 100 nuclear power plants over the next ten years, uranium (NYSE:CCJ) has great potential (click here for my piece). Equities may never come back from their current slide. Don’t buy ETF’s because they are just another form of paper, and may not actually own the gold or silver they claim. The government is laying the foundation for a massive inflation which will begin soon.

Howard has long been considered card carrying member of the lunatic fringe of the investment world, sticking with hard assets throughout their 20 year bear market during the eighties and nineties, and annually predicting the demise of the federal government. Maybe it’s a case of a broken clock being right twice a day, but in recent years I find myself agreeing with Howard more and more. Whether that means I’m now a lunatic too, only time will tell.